


That Which Destroys Us

by lalalive



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Feels, Gen, Implied Torture, Lucifer's Cage, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalive/pseuds/lalalive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While trapped in Lucifer's cage, Lucifer asks Sam if throwing himself in was worth it. And Sam, looking at Adam, tries to remember if it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Which Destroys Us

**Author's Note:**

> I have never written a Supernatural fic in my life, so *toasts champagne* Cheers to sunshine_173 for being the best beta boo

They said it was like being strapped to the side of a comet, but until Sam had something in him - something three times his size, razor sharp, and white hot - pulling the essence of him apart, those words were empty and meaningless. He'd used the last of his strength to push the rage aside, to feel, for one final moment, what it meant to love, and let himself take the fall, _for everything_. On the long way down, he retreated back to the too brightly lit corners of himself that Lucifer dragged him out of, simply to play, in appreciation of being put back in his cage.

He'd learned quickly to not fight, to remain limp and thoughtless because it hurt less. Struggling only made him dissolve faster, and so he settled on the agonizing slowness of melting rather than immediate evisceration. No one would save him, and maybe what he was clinging to was called hope but it was easier to say it was his humanity. 

Playing dead, physically speaking, was simple. Truthfully, he was surprised by how quickly he could kill every synapse that could potentially become an action, how pleasurable it was to not have to react. But mentally….sensually... 

The pieces of him that remained lifeless weren't enough to block out the feeling of his knuckles, shred raw and aching as they resonated with the crunch of Adam's cheekbone. They were not strong enough to stop him from cringing as he felt his spine crack when his body was thrown against the wall. And then there were the days when Lucifer and Michael were tired, or maybe they weren't tired at all, merely silenced by their hate, and Lucifer would whisper to him about anything that vaguely entertained him. It was only during his time in the cage that he realized the word 'entertainment' is entirely subjective, because Lucifer wasn't sated until Sam felt like there was a knife behind his eyes and it was everything he could do not to press himself against it just to slowly evaporate into nothingness. 

At the best of times, the talking wouldn't cease until the core of him felt like shattering. At the worst, Lucifer would demand a response. Responding meant thinking, and the lack of detachment meant he couldn't pretend all of this was just a nightmare. 

Sometimes, while looking Michael in the eye as he snapped Adam's bones beneath his fingers like match sticks, Lucifer would turn on him and ask

'Was it worth it, Sammy?'

The question always brought a knee-jerk response consisting of a resounding 'yes.' But then he would see Adam breaking apart, and he would remember that, somewhere inside that youthful, cracking shell of a vessel, his half-brother was gradually learning how to die. 

'Be honest with me, Sam. There are thousands of ways I can unmake you and force you to enjoy each of them just the same.' 

The same sentence, always with a twinge of indignation that Sam wasn't grateful he was still alive. They existed for one another, as sick as it was, two halves of a twisted whole.

In his silence, he would look at Adam, and sometimes he would wonder if there was anything left to his brother at all. 

'You and Dean are always making choices together, choices that revolve solely around saving each other. But you never stop to think about anyone else who could possibly be affected by your alarming martyr complex.' 

He hated that it was true, that they had made a promise a long time ago declaring they were the only things that mattered to each other because they were the only threads remaining of a family that had been decimated. He hated that even this was wrong, because they made choices without Bobby that would hurt their surrogate father more than words could express; that regardless of who or what came into their lives, their reckless abandon for their own souls in exchange for the other's meant creating wounds in those around them that would never be cauterized. 

And he hated, most of all, that he would never bring himself to say it was Lucifer who pulled their brothers down with them. That Adam was an unwilling participant in a scheme that never had anything to do with him. He wanted to call the kettle black, but he was too much of a coward to say anything. So, instead, he would watch his own hands rip his brother's body asunder, only for it to heal and die again. He would watch his own body shatter and rebuild, and wonder, maybe, if Adam could forgive him if Michael hadn't already set what was left of him ablaze. 

It was obvious he never would. Tortured in heaven, tortured in hell, the slaughtered fragments of Adam had only been exposed to cruelty since he and Dean had come into his life. 

And as he watched all the different ways Michael and Lucifer painted the walls red, felt the ways he was annihilated and reborn, and felt the weight of his decision to leave Dean in favor of everyone on Earth, he let Lucifer's mocking voice sink deep into the molten guilt he carried within him.

'You let me in. You let this happen. I hope it was worth it.'


End file.
